Given the EU’s high level of energy imports and the consumption patterns of its citizens, promoting a shift to the circular economy – from a linear ‘take-make-consume and dispose’ pattern of growth to an economy that has the re-using, repairing, refurbishing and recycling of existing materials and products as its starting point – makes a lot of sense. In July 2014, the Commission adopted a first ‘Circular Economy Package’, but now that the Commission has announced it will be replaced by a “new and more ambitious” package, to be published in the autumn of 2015, a lot of questions have risen concerning the character of this new set of measures: how has the Commission envisioned the role of the EU in promoting the circular economy? How can the circular economy contribute to the goal of developing a sustainable economy in the EU? When and how will the public consultation process take place? And what are the objectives of this new package? At this Policy Briefing, members from Commissioners Karmenu Vella’s (Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries) and Elżbieta Bieńkowska’s (Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs) cabinets explained their Commissioners’ plans for the circular economy and took questions from the audience.